.... R1b1b2a1b (S116) seems to be Bell-Beaker. It's descendants cover the Bell-Beaker area and the time (2500 BC) is also optimal. It should have originated in the Basque area or wider Southern France, this is clear from the distribution of its descendants: 2 basque branches (M65,M153), Ibero-Atlantic M167, Alpine-Celtic S28/U152, and Scots-Irish L21. I explain the spread and the corresponding languages in two other topics of this site, please see more there....

I've been interested in the Bell Beaker folks too as a possible carrier of L21. The only hitch I'm seeing is I can't find any mention of Bell Beaker archeological evidence in Norway and we now know L21 has a significant presence in Norway. Do we know the true extent of the Bell Beaker folks in Scandinavia? Surely there must be an archeological opinion on this that would be fairly conclusive.

The Beaker folk who began arriving in Britain in the 3rd millennium BC most certainly did not come from Iberia. They came from the Rhine-Elbe region. The beaker burials in Iberia differ from those in Britain not only in types of artifacts but in the physical types of humans found in the burial sites.

Jafety has everything too neatly compartmentalized (and too neatly designed to make U152 look like the "Super Clade").

Let me join this interesting conversation on the R1b origins.First of all, I do not think R1 is Indo-European. Thus nor R1b, nor R1a is IE. I can make a lot of arguements but now my focus is on R1b. (I hope I use the most recent classification...)So, R1b1b2a1b (S116) seems to be Bell-Beaker. It's descendants cover the Bell-Beaker area and the time (2500 BC) is also optimal. It should have originated in the Basque area or wider Southern France, this is clear from the distribution of its descendants: 2 basque branches (M65,M153), Ibero-Atlantic M167, Alpine-Celtic S28/U152, and Scots-Irish L21. I explain the spread and the corresponding languages in two other topics of this site, please see more there.The quite youngness of the Germanic R1b (U106) and Bell-Beaker R1b (S116) branches does not necessarily contradict and Iberian origin. Now the MRCA of M269 (R1b1b2) is given 7500 BC. This goes well with the Mesolitic Azilian, Tardenoisian and Sauveterrian cultures. The spread of these cultures can represent an early R1b1b2* migration. These hunter-gatherers were then later outnumbered by Neolithic (E-M78) settlers. A high population of R1b1b2 remained only in the S France/N Spain mountanious area. Neolithic peoples occupied the river valleys and plains, while our ancestors stayed in the mountainous areas. When metallurgy was invented and bronze introduced, the mountainous territory became better as contained more metals for weapons. So they could counquer the Neolithic farmers and take their wives. Some of them continued agriculture, others migrated further. This possibly happened with the Bell-Beakers of the early Bronze Age. The original place of the Germanic U106 branch is not (yet) clear.For pre-M269, I suppose R1b1-P25 people were the Magdalenian cave painters.

What do you think on these?

What would you say if I told you that the founders for P312 and U106 may literally have been brothers, or uncle and nephew? Vince Vizachero's latest calculations puts only about 23 _years_ separation between the common ancestor of U106 and P312, with confidence intervals somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50 to 250 years, plus or minus. This division also appears to have taken place slightly more than 4000 years ago (plus or minus 1000 years).

Could have one still been celtic and the other germanic, when what we term "celtic" and "germanic" really only applies to tribal _cultures_ that existed 2000-2750 years ago?

The Beaker folk who began arriving in Britain in the 3rd millennium BC most certainly did not come from Iberia. They came from the Rhine-Elbe region. The beaker burials in Iberia differ from those in Britain not only in types of artifacts but in the physical types of humans found in the burial sites.

This does not necessarily contradict each other. To Britain they arrived from the Rhine-Elbe region, and they surely mixed with Corded Ware people there. Now, if Iberian burial type is different, that can also mean that the habits of Iberian Beakers who migrated north were affected by Corded people already living in the Rhine area.

Plus, I do not want U152 to look as super clade! As I told you, I think they were a people living around the Alps and speaking a pre-IE language, which was a relative of Iberian, Basque and Pict. They were later "colonized" or at least culturally affected by Illyrians, and from the merger the proto-Celtic language was the result. And Italic is not included, in my theory those migrated through the Otranto strait from Albania to South and Central Italy, mainly Hg J2. The Italo-Celtic branch is therefore valid only because both came from Illyrians.

What would you say if I told you that the founders for P312 and U106 may literally have been brothers, or uncle and nephew? Vince Vizachero's latest calculations puts only about 23 _years_ separation between the common ancestor of U106 and P312, with confidence intervals somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50 to 250 years, plus or minus. This division also appears to have taken place slightly more than 4000 years ago (plus or minus 1000 years).

Could have one still been celtic and the other germanic, when what we term "celtic" and "germanic" really only applies to tribal _cultures_ that existed 2000-2750 years ago?

For the second question, of course not. As I wrote, I think Celtic people were formed from pre-Celtic Alpine people merging with some Illyrian Indo-Europeans coming from the South, some time between 1200 BC and 600 BC (Hallstatt). La Tene is Celtic in mainstream history so I dont see a problem with that. I saw two very different MRCA dates for U-106: 5000 BC and 1000 BC. Now, if the later is valid, that is also not far from the history appearance of the Germanic peoples. I meant Germanic U-106 if 1000 BC is the valid date for appearance. If 5000 BC, then of course it does not apply, only the later spread of U-106 is definitely connected to Germanic migrations.I see two different possibilities concerining Germans:a) Lusatian culture was proto-German, as Indo-European speakers came from the Carpathian Basin or Ukraine and conquered the R1a population of modern Poland who that time were likely to speak a Baltic-Finnic language.b) If Germanic Substrate Hypothesis is valid, then the IE feature of German is resulting from an IE superstrate (Baltic or Celtic, depends on where we place proto-Germans: into Poland or Northern Germany) and a pre-IE substrate (Hg I1 and possibly R1b-U106, but U106 also could be the conqueror)